


Being Crystal Brown

by quipquipquip



Category: Batgirl (Comic), Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quipquipquip/pseuds/quipquipquip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the mother of a girl hero is tough. Even tougher if your husband's a villain. Nobody knows this better than Crystal Brown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Crystal Brown

Your name is Agnes "Crystal" Bellinger Brown, and you've made some mistakes. You're lower middle class, and you're the one person in your family to make something of yourself. Your younger brother, Dave, was an armed robber. You're used to the cycle of jail time and disappointment even before you meet Arthur. Arthur is a good sell; he has all the size and bulk of a Bad Boy, but he's also clever. He isn't smart or well educated, but he's charismatic and good looking. You promise yourself that you'll finish that nursing degree and help save the world, and he says he'll support you. You don't expect much more out of life, and you do love him. In lower-middle class Gotham, that's enough.

For a couple years, the two of you hike the social ladder. All that charm pays off, and Arthur briefly hosts a game show. He has the personality for it, the presence. The two of you have a child, a little girl you name Stephanie. This is earlier in life than you wanted to have kids, a hitch in The Plan, but with Arthur putting you through school it seems like a good thing. You have a job, you have a family, and you have a small house that is yours. Both of your names are on the deed.

But the game show goes off the air, and Arthur doesn't know what to do with all that cleverness. His job had never been a _job_ , so he wants to keep on the easy money. You don't want that---not for yourself, not for your baby girl---but Arthur is a Bad Boy. He doesn't have to raise his hand to hurt you---not with his cutting cleverness---but he does. Arthur has horrific ideas of what a wife owes a husband.

Without him working, money is tight. You take on more and more shifts. You know he's planning things, you know that he's turned into a crook, but what can you do? You start taking stimulants to keep you going through your increasingly long and difficult shifts. It's not abuse, not at first, but you have to be the provider and the mother and the wife. Arthur ends up in jail, but it's not a relief. Life goes on, and he's released. He comes back angry, because he doesn't like to be proven wrong. The armchair psychologist in you knows that there's something wrong with him, but again---what are you supposed to do?

It becomes a cycle. He has his big schemes, and sometimes he makes the hit, and sometimes he doesn't. You don't know which is worse, because neither is _good_. He's rougher now, driven, and he scares you. He backs you into verbal corners; he puts you in your place. Because you're an accessory. You know that, right? You let him get away with this shit, so if he gets in trouble, so do you. And what will happen to sweet little Stephanie if both her parents end up in jail? You can't afford to get a lawyer to divorce him or sue him for the house, so you just shut down. There is no avenue of escape from this life. Not a physical one, at least.

Because there are pills. They're not hard to get a hold of, and when you take them, you can check out. Even if it's only for a few hours, you float. What Arthur says and does doesn't matter, because there's no room for him on your buoyant chemical cloud. There are your favorites, the big blue OxyContin 160s. You'll take the whole lesser rainbow, and sometimes have to, because those little blue beauties will set you back $200 for just six. It's an ugly cycle. You take the pills to survive your shifts, and then take on more work to pay for the pills.

Arthur notices, but not because he's worried about you. You've put on a lot of weight, and he makes it abundantly clear what he thinks about that. He's gone straight, at least for a little while, and you almost resent him for it. He's working a normal job, using that brawn instead of his cleverness, and he's actually providing for you and Steph for once. Arthur takes you on "vacation", sitting you down in a shitty hotel room and giving you two options. You can get clean and stop being a financial drain on the "family", or he'll get rid of you. He mimes a gun with two fingers, flicking his thumb like a trigger. You know he'll do it, too.

You get clean. You wake up. You realize that your daughter is eleven years old and you barely know her. She's withdrawn when you get out of rehab, all twitchy hands and big blue eyes that flick toward her father and away as quickly as possible. Something has happened, and you don't know what. She doesn't trust you enough to tell you, so you cancel her piano lessons and sell the used Casio she used to play on. Steph had a talent, and when you were high you'd listen to her play. Arthur took away both of your pacifiers. You don't know how to connect to her, but you love her.

You love your daughter. She's your one bright, good thing. Arthur hasn't given you much, but you cherish her. Even before she started putting on a mask and fighting Arthur in ways you never could, she was your hero. You feel like you've failed her, because she's had to half raise herself. She resents you for it---you can see it in her eyes when you try to bridge the gap between the two of you and pretend that she's just another teenager and you're the mom she'll confide in. Guilt eats at you, and you don't know whether to blame your selfishness, your fear, your addiction, or your husband. They've all had a part to play. You haven't been there for her, an it shows.

You fall off the wagon more than once. It's too tempting, too easy, and life's too hard. Your sobering wake-up call is the day your baby girl tells you she's going to have a baby herself. She's barely a teenager. This, you feel, is also your fault. You switch around your schedule and do everything you can to make it _right_. She's a strong girl, a trooper, and she decides to have the baby and put it up for adoption. Your heart doesn't so much break as it _shreds_ , because you're torn in about eight different directions. You know that you can't afford to help her raise her baby, that she's too young to be a mother, but you can't help but think _this is my first grandchild_ as Steph starts to get big.

But you support her. You get close during her pregnancy, but then the baby is gone and there's a hole between you. Arthur's back out, and he brings friends.

And then you find out that your baby girl is one of _them_ , the "caped crusaders" who fill the emergency room and put your husband in jail. You're scared. You're terrified for her, because you know what happens to people who go out on the streets. It's different from the heroics of a firefighter or police officer, because fires don't secrete neurotoxins and speeders don't cut up little girls for no reason other than they can. What Batman and his people fight isn't crime, it's nightmares.

You don't want that for her. You don't want to have to bury your one good, bright thing. But Stephanie is stubborn, so she goes behind your back. She's Spoiler, and then she's Robin.

And then you bury her. Your husband is dead, your daughter is dead, and you know that if you go back to the pills you won't resurface. So you throw yourself into your work, saving the world the way you know how. You're human, and you've made mistakes, and it's cost you.

But then, miracle of miracles, your baby walks into the hospital a year later, whole and well. Her hair's longer, and she's tanned and scarred, but she's still alive.

For the second time, you tell yourself you'll make it right. You'll support her. Because you're a mother, and you love your daughter. She wants the night, and you want better for her than that. You want her to be happy.

All mothers do.


End file.
